"The real transgression occurs when religion wants government to tell citizens how to live uniquely personal parts of their lives. The failure of Prohibition proves the futility of such an attempt when a majority or even a substantial minority happens to disagree. Some questions may be inherently individual ones, or people may be sharply divided about whether they are. In such cases, like Prohibition and abortion, the proper role of religion is to appeal to the conscience of the individual, not the coercive power of the state."
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Government quotes (page 103 of 568)
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"I believe that religious witness should not mobilize public authority to impose a view where a decision is inherently private in nature or where people are deeply divided about whether it is... Americans are plainly and persistently divided about abortion and the fiat of government cannot settle the issue as a matter of conscience or of conduct."
"I had the privilege of chairing Judge Samuel Alito confirmation hearing in 1990. And at that time, he had practiced law for 14 years, but only represented one client, the United States government."
"In an era when too many Americans are losing their jobs or working for less, trying to make ends meet, in close cases Judge [Samuel] Alito has ruled the vast majority of the time against the claims of the individual citizens. He has acted instead in favor of government, large corporations and other powerful interests."
"The other view is of the official United States, the United States of armies and interventions. The United States that in 1953 overthrew the nationalist government of Mossadegh in Iran and brought back the shah."
"Government exists for one purpose: to make things better for all people."
"It has been a long fight to put the control of our economic system in the hands of the government."
"I'm enormously interested in freedom and retaining the right to have whatever economy we want and to shape it as we want and a having sufficient Democracy so that the people actually hold their Government in their own hands."
"A respect for the rights of other peoples to determine their forms of government and their economy will not weaken our democracy. It will inevitably strengthen it."
"It's not a weapon, [governments] don't kill, they don't conduct massacres, although massacres have been committed and many people were killed, but they stifle religion, they're afraid probably."
"I think those governments who resent religion, they're afraid of religion because religion may be in their eyes, in their views be seen as a counter government or a parallel government."
"Refugee today means somebody who has no home. No homeland. No security. No government to protect him or her. And it is of course one feels not only uprooted, one feels useless. One feels always surrounded by hostile forces. Arousing suspicion."
"I would say to [Chinese government], You don't need Tibet really. You don't need all the problems Tibet creates for you. It's so small, so far away. Give them their religious freedom and I know that they wouldn't misuse it."
"I believe in optimism of the will, pessimism of the intellect. But my hope is the people, the society, which is ahead of the government."
"Almost half of the Turkish population believes it is not legitimate to criticize the government. Interestingly, this correlates with the number of supporters of Erdogan's government."
"We [US government] have used our taxpayer dollars not only to subsidize these banks but also to subsidize the creditors of those banks and the equity holders in those banks. We could have talked about forcing those investors to take some serious hits on their risky dealings. The idea that taxpayer dollars go in first rather than last - after the equity has been used up - is shocking."
"So, I bought a new CD and I was trying to get it open but couldn't with all the layers... I mean plastic and then tape, and the tape is like government tape. It says 'open here.' Is that sarcasm?"
"A triumphalist corporate capitalism, free at last of the specter of Communism, has mobilized its economic power to relentlessly marginalize all nonmarket values; to subordinate every aspect of American life to corporate "efficiency" and the bottom line; to demonize not only government but the very idea of public service and public goods."
"SpaceX has the potential of saving the U.S. government $1 billion a year. We are opposed to creating an entrenched monopoly with no realistic means for anyone to compete."
""All government in essence," says Emerson, "is tyranny." It matters not whether it is government by divine right or majority rule. In every instance its aim is the absolute subordination of the individual."